Women's cross country national championship, NCAA tournament bids in five other sports boost Blue Jays

ByHub staff report

/Published
Dec 21, 2017

For the first time in its history, Johns Hopkins sits atop the final Learfield Directors' Cup standings at the end of a season. On the strength of a fifth national championship in six years in women's cross country and appearances in NCAA championship competition by five other teams, Johns Hopkins totaled 383 points this fall to top the rankings.

Prior to this year, Hopkins had ranked as high as third on three different occasions at the end of the fall season, in 2012, 2013, and 2016). In 2014-15, JHU finished a program-best second overall after points for the fall, winter, and spring athletics seasons were compiled.

There are more than 400 schools competing under the NCAA Division III banner, and 190 of those schools scored points in the Directors' Cup standings in the fall. After Johns Hopkins, the top five are MIT (319.5), Middlebury (301), St. Thomas (Minnesota) (270), and Wisconsin LaCrosse (270). See complete Directors' Cup standings (PDF)

Johns Hopkins, which has eight consecutive final top 15 finishes in the Directors' Cup standings, added points in women's soccer, men's soccer, volleyball, men's cross country, and football to go along with the women's cross country national championship.

Hopkins' six NCAA-qualifying teams were the most in program history in the fall and the most of any Division III school in the nation this fall.

The Learfield Directors' Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and USA Today. Through the course of the year, Directors' Cup points are awarded based on a school's finish in up to 18 sports—nine men's and nine women's—in NCAA Championships.